


Conflagration of our Sheltered Hides

by bravelittletoreador



Category: Homestuck, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Innuendo, Kissing, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Pokemon AU, Sunburns, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 15:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15318870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelittletoreador/pseuds/bravelittletoreador
Summary: A short fluffy poly pokemon AU in which John, professional trainer, takes on the newly formed Alolan pokemon league, accompanied by his boyfriends Dave and Karkat, who is still a troll for some reason and no one questions this. Karkat has some complaints about the climate, Dave is struggling with the dichotomies of Pokeparenting, and John just really wants to get a picture of the legendary Tapu Koko.





	Conflagration of our Sheltered Hides

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Makizushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makizushi/gifts).



 

A ferocious bellow, a little Vast Shriek, rent the still summer air and shook the island to its roots with deep agonized fury. An intense, dying-star heat suffused every particle the sound touched with its issuer's fathomless, all-consuming hate, all narrowed to a single point in a darkened hotel room in Hau'oli City. 

"Arceus's fatty fucking truck nuts, Karkat," Dave complained, withdrawing with a dishcloth sized solid piece of Karkat's peeling, incredibly sunburned skin. "What deity did you upset my dude? Did you piss in Ho-Oh's breakfast cereal? Did you give Moltres's self-insert fic a shitty review? Divine wrath is the only possibility I'm coming up with here." 

"Moltres is a hack writer and he knows it," Karkat raised his head from his pillows long enough to sob, before returning to his whimpering misery. Dave exchanged a look with John, who sat on the other side of the bed holding a bulk-buy family size bottle of ultra-healing super mentholated all-natural aloe gel (now with 20% more JUICE!!). John shook his head regretfully. 

"Give it to me straight, doc," Dave asked, ignoring John's snickers. "Will he live?" 

"Maybe if we'd amputated earlier," John said with exaggerated sadness. "But the infection has already spread all the way to the patient's ears." 

He punctuated this by flicking the top of one of Karkat's reddened ears, which summoned another earth rending shriek and a brief tussle which Karkat quickly surrendered to out of exhaustion. 

"I'm afraid his only chance now is an early embalming in this nasty plant goo," John finished as Karkat gave up his weak attempts to strangle the other man. 

"Rest in piss Karkles," Dave said solemnly, taking the bottle of aloe and upending it over Karkat's back. "Oh tender turgid blossom of youth's fevered thrusting, we hardly knew ye." 

Karkat sobbed into the pillow. 

 

Karkat had started burning the second they'd stepped off the plane in Alola. Dave supposed that was to be somewhat expected when you brought a previously nocturnal, highly sun averse species to the sunniest vacation spot on the equator. But he and John had seen plenty of other trolls out enjoying the mostly-non-lethal sun. Karkat's usual abysmal luck seemed to be holding steady, even in a Pokémon paradise.  

Later, enrobed in a layer of sunscreen so deep he could have passed for the target in a greased pig contest and wearing the biggest, stupidest sunhat Dave could find in the hotel gift shop, Karkat dared to emerge from the safety of the hotel again. 

"He lives!" John said dramatically. "The science of weird slime triumphs again!" 

He and Dave had been hanging out by the hotel pool with their pokemon while they waited for Karkat to get ready. Dave's scraggy, Lil Snoop, was spitting water at John's bewear, Beary Styles, because Lil Snoop had zero sense of self preservation. Dave and John, with Dave's Honchcrow (lovingly christened The Ass Man but who went by A. Man for contest registration purposes, and yes Dave had once seriously considered plucking it and entering the contest arena declaring 'BEHOLD, A MAN' but Karkat had assured him the reference was too obscure to be worth the potential discomfort to The Ass Man who, for his part, had seemed down for it) and John's ambipom Finger Prince (named for his regal bearing, lovely singing voice, and profusion of fingers) waited eagerly for the inevitable chaos. 

Karkat moved gingerly to a pool chair near his partners and sat down carefully. 

"You would decide to challenge the league in the hottest place on earth," Karkat griped. "Where do you fight the champion? Surface of the fucking sun?" 

"Top of a volcano I think," John replied with a grin. 

"Of course!" 

 "It's a brand-new league doing things a whole new way. How could I resist?" 

"If they offer you a gym here I will personally shove it up their ugly asses." 

"Maybe we should start the first pokemon league at the north pole," Dave suggested. "Just gym after gym full of fuckin delibirds." 

"What have both of you got against temperate zones?" Karkat griped. 

"I'm not taking on the first challenge today anyway," John said. "Dave's signed up for the contest at the arena in town." 

"Contest league is pretty small potatoes here," Dave said with a shrug. "But they've got a ring on three of the islands so I figured I might as well show these beach bums how it's done. But we've got a good few hours before that. Figured we could cruise the town, check out the beach." 

"I want to see the ruins!" John said excitedly. "One of the Island Guardians is supposed to hang out there. I taught Colonel Popcorn to use a camera so that if it shows up I'll definitely get a picture." 

Colonel Popcorn, John's drifblim, floated ominously past overhead, a disposable camera held loosely in its trailing ribbons. Bears Styles, having had enough of Lil Snoop's shenanigans, caught the lizard by its pants and supelxed it into the deep end, sending up a tremendous splash which startled Colonel Popcorn, who reflexively snapped a picture before dropping the disposable camera into the pool, where it bounced off of Lil Snoop's head before sinking to the bottom. The Ass Man erupted into loud, cawing laughter, Finger Prince rolling on the ground beside him. 

Dave fished his scraggy out of the water and flopped into a beach chair with Lil Snoop on his chest. 

"Good try, bud," he said, patting the waterlogged lizard's head. Karkat came to shade them with his massive sun hat. The one Dave had chosen, for some reason, had the words "FOXY GRANDPA" embroidered across the brim. 

"You've got to stop encouraging him," Karkat said. "He does that dumb shit to impress you." 

"I know," Dave said with a shrug. "But he does such a good job of getting his own ass kicked I feel like any more would be overkill. He just got suplexed by a bear. What am I gonna do, put him in time out?" 

"Poké-parenting requires firm, consistent discipline," Karkat said, quoting from the award-winning book on pokemon breeding 'Dr. Pokélove or How I Learned to Stop IV Farming and Love the Egg' which he had, coincidentally, written. "And equally consistent positive support and reinforcement. If you're only giving him cuddles when he pulls stupid self-destructive shenanigans you're just encouraging him to hurt himself." 

"This is why I'm the laid back casual good fun times dad," Dave said. "And you're the responsible vegetable shoveling dad." 

"Damn right,"  Karkat replied, and pushed his sunhat back so that he could lean down and kiss Dave, and then Lil Snoop. 

"Hey, I want kisses too!" John demanded, grinning. Karkat whipped around so fast he almost lost his raybans into the pool, pointing an accusatory finger at John. 

"YOU flicked my sunburn, you insufferable fucking toe fungus. You will get kisses over my cold dead corpse!" 

John, looking crushed, exchanged a look with Dave, who put a hand on Karkat's lower back. 

"Babe," he said. "Look at me." 

Karkat turned to frown at Dave, hands on his hips. 

"What? You're not seriously defending him right now, are you?" 

"No. I'm distracting you." 

And John tackled Karkat into the pool. 

 

After much shrieking and a final capitulation in which everyone received a satisfactory amount of kisses, they headed out into town. They ate malasada on the beach while Karkat's horde of Dwebble (almost exclusively named after Jane Austen characters) ran in and out of the surf, splashing his Crustle (Eliza), and dodging the claws of his oldest pokemon, Darcy the Kingler. It was almost pleasant enough to make Karkat appreciate Alola a little more, until John dropped a pyukumuku on him and he returned to unfettered loathing. 

They hit up the shops on the boardwalk, John indulging Karkat's weakness for cute accessories to make up for his teasing. Karkat might have resisted if he hadn't known John was more than good for it.  Though all three of them were fairly well off- Karkat was world renowned for his revolutionary pokemon husbandry techniques and Dave had a cult following among the contest crowd and several lucrative endorsement deals- John was loaded. His family had been wealthy to start with (his grandmother was the tycoon behind an incredibly successful poketreat company) and once he'd started battling professionally he'd raked in more money than he knew what to do with. He'd been offered gyms all over, could have even been standing champ in several leagues. But he didn't want to be tied down. So he just took his oodles of prize money and kept traveling, taking on every challenge he could find.  

They checked out the marina, the photo club, got lunch at the battle buffet, then had to run for the contest hall where Dave about to be late for his contest.  

"So what dumb bullshit have you got planned this time?" Karkat asked as they signed in at the contest hall, talking loudly to drown out the whispers of the other competitors and spectators gathered in the small contest hall.  

"You know I never plan anything," Dave lied. "Winging it makes the ideas more organic and shit." 

This was a lie. Karkat knew how many late nights he stayed up choreographing and practicing with his pokemon. He just didn't want anyone to know how much effort he put into it. That wouldn't be 'cool.' 

"Yeah and I'm sure you just 'winged' that suitcase full of props you're carrying," Karkat teased. 

"These are freeform inspiration aids. Just random objects to spark the creative process. You wouldn't get it." 

"That better not be where all my pool toys disappeared to," John warned. "I paid good money for those noodles!" 

"I have no comment on any pool noodles I may or may not have transformed into freeform inspiration aids." 

"Dave!" 

"You can't make me speak without a lawyer present." 

The whispers of the crowd got harder to drown out as they headed into the contest hall. 

 _"That can't be him. The real guy would never bother with this place."_  

 _"Unless he's just showing off."_  

 _"I heard he was a battle trainer but he couldn't hack it. Just wasn't good enough to compete."_  

 _"Nah, my friend's sister's ex saw him battle- they say that she said that he said he was the best and it was too easy and he got bored."_  

Most of which was bullshit, obviously. Dave had been a battle trainer (He'd been John's rival growing up, except John never really got the whole 'rival' concept and just thought they were friends and was so aggressively friendly that Dave eventually just accepted it), but Dave had only pursued battling at his brother's insistence. John and Karkat had both seen the fallout of Bro's 'training' first hand.  He still had trouble even watching John's matches sometimes. In the end, even though he was a good enough trainer to give John a run for his money, battling had caused him nothing but stress and pain, and double that for his pokemon. Bro's style of training was possibly worse for them than for Dave. 

That was what had brought Karkat into his life, back when they were both still spotty teenagers. Karkat had seen the state Dave's pokemon were in after a high-profile match and been so incensed that he'd tracked Dave down to give the man a piece of his mind. He'd pushed Dave to move away from negative reinforcement techniques. Dave had resisted at first, but once John met Karkat and targeted him with his relentless friendship powers, there'd been no escaping Karkat's wrath. Dave had eventually given in, mostly out of a weird jealousy for how close and cooperative Karkat was with his pokemon. Treating his pokemon like friends instead of tools for the first time had made him a much more effective trainer, and finally started to open his eyes to how wrong everything his brother had done to him was. John and Karkat had eventually approached him together about leaving the competitive battling circuit. Eventually, Dave had come to terms with the fact that he didn't owe it to his brother to keep competing and had stepped down. It was Karkat who had suggested pokemon competitions as something Dave could do with his pokemon team to keep them busy and engaged without battling, and Dave had quickly taken a shine to the more creative aspects of competition.  

John and Karkat settled into their seats in the private box for guests of the competitors and watched the performances, all of them stunning displays of artistry, skillful training, and flawless communication between person and pokemon. 

When Dave entered the ring Karkat squeezed John's hand and held his breath. John was on the edge of his seat.  

Dave, with the help of his Bisharp, DJ Salinger, and his Throh, John Travolta (John had a matching Sawk name Nick Cage), rolled in two sets of staircases, a statue of a horse, and a pile of folding chairs while Lil Snoop the Scrafty manned a firehose, rapidly flooding the large stage. Murmurs of dismay filled the audience as Dave fit DJ Salinger, John Travolta, The Ass Man, and Lil Snoop with individually monogrammed t-shirts and sunglasses. As the four pokemon stood among the folding chairs in the slowly flooding sound stage, Dave produced a microphone and began to narrate. 

"DIRK 1 is a hard young man with hair like a majestic bird..." 

It was one for the ages. Karkat hoped somebody got a good recording. The audience looked utterly baffled and/or angry, save the handful that knew Dave's work and were simply nodding in understanding, or taking notes on modern philosophers to google later. Dave didn't take home any ribbons (he rarely did) but he was all anyone was talking about for the rest of the evening. They slipped out of the contest hall a little early to avoid the crowds. 

It was early evening and they got ice cream on the way to the ruins, and poketreats for Dave's hardworking performers.  

"So, you winged it, huh?" Karkat teased as they walked, admiring the overgrown statues and pillars of the ancient shrine. 

"Yup," Dave confirmed, deadpan into his mint chocolate chip. "Didn't plan a word. If it had been any more of an ass pull I would have prolapsed on stage." 

"Gross," John snickered, nearly dropping his rocky road. "Also bullshit. You tested that line about Proust or whatever on me during the plane ride." 

"I draw inspiration from life," Dave said archly. 

"You draw inspiration from my ass." 

"That too." 

"Dave," Karkat said sharply, and Dave followed the troll's gaze to where Lil Snoop had climbed up onto the ropes of the bridge ahead of them. As soon as the Scrafty saw it had Dave's attention he waved proudly and began strutting across the ropes like a particularly smug circus act. Dave snorted. 

"Don't laugh!" Karkat scolded. "Go stop him before he gets hurt!" 

"Right," Dave said, shaking his head. Sometimes it was easy to forget that it wasn't normal to risk hurting yourself to impress someone. "Snoop! That's enough buddy. Get down before you eat it like Karkat in the tutorial level of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4." 

“Hey. I’ll have you know I’m a pro at pro skater 4.” 

Lil Snoop ignored Dave, hurrying further out along the ropes.  

“Snoop, you dumbass!” Dave shouted, hurrying after the scrafty and starting to get genuinely worried now. The ropes were old and loose and that was a very long drop under that bridge… John and Karkat stayed close behind him, John already summoning his team from their Pokéballs.  

Before Dave could even call out to Lil Snoop again the scrafty slipped, feet catching on his stupid pants. Dave’s heart stopped as Snoop dropped, barely catching the ropes in time to avoid plunging into the ravine. He dangled, barely hanging on, as Dave ran to him. 

Dave dived, catching Lil Snoop just as he lost his grip on the rope, overshooting the edge of the bridge in the process and sending himself over. He clung to the edge with one hand and Snoop with the other, seconds from falling. 

"Prince!" John shouted to his ambipom, which vaulted the space between them to grab Dave by the seat of his pants. It slowed him down, but only for a second before all three of them began sliding again, Finger Prince just not heavy enough to anchor the full grown man and his scrafty. Fortunately, John and Karkat were there a second later, each grabbing Dave by the arm and dragging him up. John's Bewear finally grabbed them all in a massive bear hug, pulling them all away from the edge at once. 

They collapsed together on solid ground, heart racing and limbs tangled, Dave holding Lil Snoop so tight his arms hurt. They lay on their backs, staring up at the stars just beginning to come out. Karkat's head was on Dave's shoulder, his arms around the other man's waist. Dave lay on John's broad chest, feeling his heavy breathing as John stroked his hair soothingly. 

"You," Dave said, voice rough with stress as he glared down at Lil Snoop past his shades. "Are grounded." 

For some reason that made Karkat snicker into Dave's shirt, which got John started, and soon even Dave was sharing their relieved laughter. The grass and the night air was cool, and they were in no hurry to get up. 

Karkat suddenly stiffened, blinking up at something in the sky. 

"Hey John, isn't that...?" 

John gasped, sitting up sharply as he too saw the distinctive shape in the sky. 

"Colonel Popcorn! Go!" 

The drifblim fumbled with the disposable camera, blinded itself with the flash, then dropped it. John scrambled to retrieve the camera, but by the time he found it the Island Guardian had vanished. He sighed, shoulders heavy with regret. 

"At least you saw it dude," Dave said encouragingly, putting an arm around the man he loved. 

"It was probably just a wingull anyway," Karkat pointed out, leaning against John from the other side. John smiled at them both, and kissed Dave's temple, then the top of Karkat's head. 

"Eh, who cares," he said. "I'll get him eventually. I've got a whole season of battling to do in Alola. I'm just really glad you guys are here with me." 

He held up the camera suggestively. Dave and Karkat rolled their eyes but didn't protest. Their pokemon gathered in close to be in the picture as well. The first good snapshot of their incredible Alolan adventure. And when they had it developed later, they'd discover the unmistakable face of Tapu Koko behind them. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- Dave's contest performance is a direct reference to the incredible 'Theater of Coolty' by Duckface. https://archiveofourown.org/works/3275858 It's amazing please read it if you haven't already. Also check out Theater of Coolty (the Movie) by Naked Bee. https://youtu.be/aIavjRkRKT0
> 
> \- The boy's pokemon teams consist of:  
> Dave  
> * DJ Salinger the Bisharp  
> * The Ass Man the Honchcrow  
> * Nick Cage the Throh  
> * Lil Snoop the Scrafty  
> * Sir Hard Bottom the Escavalier (not featured in this fic)
> 
> John  
> * John Travolta the Sawk  
> * Finger Prince the Ambipom  
> * Beary Styles the Bewear  
> * Colonel Popcorn the Drifblim  
> * Sasuke the Accelgor (not featured in this fic)
> 
> Karkat  
> * Eliza the Crustle  
> * Mr. Darcy the Kingler  
> * six or more dwebble at any given time, all named after Jane Austen characters  
> * A Crawdaunt, Clawitzer, and Crabrawler named Larry, Curly, and Mo (not featured in this fic)  
> * an Exploud named Karkat jr who was a gift from John


End file.
